Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) by Beverly Toney Page A

scheduled for your
18th birthday. Until then, however, you will need to be educated in
all things St. Clair. There will be combat training as well as
education of the Vampiric political structure. Then there is the
Oleander clan and the act of retrieving your mother that will also
need to be addressed.”
    “ What
is an Embrace?” I asked.
    “ Your
‘turn’, my dear. To be Embraced is to become a Vampire.”
    And there it was. I was
next on the Vampire list. I looked at Chloe and saw a small smile
cross her face. She nodded her head at me as if confirming all that
Efia had just said. I looked at Zander and then Jordan. Both of them
were waiting for me to decide.
    Efia had said that we
didn’t have the luxury of time, so I ran through the events of
the last few days to try to find some explanation; anything to
challenge what I had been told. I stared at the floor and remembered
my foster mother’s voice and how vicious and heartless she had
sounded. I remembered the look on Raphael’s face when he had
punched the SUV window. And then there was my mother. I wondered if I
would be allowed to help rescue her. At the moment it occurred to me
that I simply had a choice between Efia and this Grigor character.
    I straightened my stole
and took a deep breath. This was indeed the first day of the rest of
my life. From this point on I would get answers to all of the
questions I had.
    “ When
do we start?”

Chapter 7

    The reception had
started right after Efia opened her wrist with an ancient knife and
poured three drops of her blood into a small silver cup. It was all I
could do to keep from throwing up when she handed it to me and told
me to drink. All that I knew about Vampires was that they were
supposed to bite you and you died or you turned. No one had ever told
me that you had to drink their blood.
    I was assured that the
three drops were just ceremonial and that the blood would actually be
beneficial to me. Over the course of the next three months I would
ingest more blood from either Efia or one of the others to insure my
health until my Embrace. Chloe had told me that she had been
ingesting blood for many years and it helped with her concentration
and physical fitness.
    I was introduced to the
remaining members of my family and struggled to keep track of them. I
knew that I was a direct descendant of Pleasant’s and that she
had one child that was Embraced and everyone in her line of
descendants was a grandparent of mine. Abraham and Israel were Uncles
many times removed and their descendants were cousins. Dizziness had
almost overwhelmed me by the time I had met and received each
individual welcome.
    Amelia’s welcome
was the most emotional. She had been there when my grandmother had
taken her last breath and years later when I had taken my first. She
held my hand and talked to me about how much like my grandmother I
was. How she had also dreamed about Efia’s life and of the
great courage she had.
    We sat for hours just
at the edge of the party talking about our respective lives and what
we had done up until that point. She asked me about my likes and
dislikes and if I had a boyfriend. It was the best feeling to have
someone so interested in me. I had missed out on so much while being
raised by Joyce Redding. I couldn’t believe how much I had
loved her only to have her turn on me. The more I thought about her,
the angrier I became.
    I began to feel anger
fill my lungs like water and, at first, I couldn’t breathe. I
sat very still and blew the anger out in a slow, controlled fashion.
I kept blowing the anger out of my body, releasing myself from
bondage and pain. I blew until my lungs were empty and I had to gasp
to fill them. It felt so good to let it out. My shoulders were
relaxed and I rolled my neck to relieve the stiffness. As I rolled my
head towards Amelia, I froze. She was staring at me with an amused
look on her face. She was clapping wildly and turning to look around
the room.
    The entire room